MO--Victims respond to “bizarre” priest conspiracy lawsuit

MO--Victims respond to “bizarre” priest conspiracy lawsuit

For immediate release: Tuesday, July 21

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

Being falsely accused of child sex crimes must be terrible. But there’s something worse: being sexually victimized as child and watching your mom and dad suffer because Catholic officials attack your parents in court.

Something else that’s also worse: Trusting your kids around a priest only to find out that he sexually violated them.

We’re doing what we can to stop it.

We sympathize with anyone who may have ever been wrongly accused or anything. But we sympathize even more with innocent kids and trusting parents who have been deeply betrayed by clerics who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes.

It’s far easier for an adult who has been wronged to rebuild his career than it is for a child who has been raped, sodomized or abused to rebuild his or her fragile self, shattered psyche and stolen faith.

Fr. Jiang is posturing as a victim. Archbishop Carlson is letting him. Shame on them both.

This is Carlson’s lawsuit. We firmly believe he approved it.

Why? Because he’s dreadfully afraid of being questioned under oath about his role in Fr. Jiang’s crimes. He doesn't want to answer questions about whether Fr. Jiang admitted to him that the priest molested the Lincoln County girl. And he’ll have to admit that he tried to get that girl’s parents to give him a key piece of evidence: a $20,000 check that Fr. Jiang gave her mom and dad.

Carlson also must explain why a man who’s not even a priest yet follows him from city to city, an arrangement in the Catholic world that’s virtually unprecedented. And why Fr. Jiang had a bedroom in the archbishop’s mansion.

Fr. Jiang’s afraid too. He fears being imprisoned, perhaps as much or more than Carlson fears being exposed. We believe he knows his lawsuit will fail. And his claim of discrimination is bogus. And his “conspiracy” claim is too.

Again, we beg victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to step forward. We especially implore current and former archdiocesan and parish staff to speak up. Fr. Jiang is young, well-educated, well-spoken and well-connected. Individuals with knowledge or suspicions about him need to find the courage to step up now.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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Good post SNAP.
The problem with The Roman Catholic clergy is that they are totally selfish and totally big-headed. More often than not they act more like children than adults. How The Roman Catholic Laity can’t see this is beyond me. Important points have been highlighted in this post, good article.